LINKING CITIES ON URBAN AGRICULTURE AND URBAN FOOD

SYSTEMS
Marielle Dubbeling, RUAF Foundation

“We call for the development and implementation of holistic ecosystems-based approaches
for city-region food systems that ensure food security, contribute to urban poverty
eradication, protect and enhance local level biodiversity and that are integrated in
development plans that strengthen urban resilience and adaptation”
Bonn Mayors Adaptation Charter signed by 20 city-leaders, June 2013

Resilient urban food systems: why should local and regional governments be engaged?

In a world characterized by urbanization, growing urban markets, urban poverty and food
insecurity, rising food prices, growing dependence on food imports and challenges posed by
climate change, an increasing attention for city-regional or urban food systems responds to the
need to place food higher on the urban agenda. This requires new levels of attention from
actors who have been less traditionally engaged in food and agriculture decisions, including
professional planners and local and regional authorities.

“Creating healthy, happy and sustainable communities in our cities requires resilient food
systems for the city region. Until now this aspect of sustainability has largely gone
unaddressed by cities, but the time has come for local governments to put food systems on
the table and take the lead on sustainable food systems, and the right to food, for their urban
populations.”
Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, former Secretary General, ICLEI-Local Governments for
Sustainability, December 2012

City-regional food system resilience, following from other sector planning, needs multiple
and diverse sources of food supply. Localized production in form of urban and peri-urban
agriculture is recognised as one of these (but by no means sole) sources, increasing food and
income security at household level and buffering shocks to food price hikes, market
distortions, and imported supplies. They offer at the same time opportunities for resource
recovery (urban wastes) and climate change adaptation (e.g. designating low lying areas and
flood plains for agriculture to prevent construction and reduce impact of floods). More
resilient city-region food systems are also characterized by lower urban foot(d)-prints and
emissions related to food transport as well as food waste; by protecting the agricultural land
base around cities, optimizing the role of agriculture in providing other urban and ecosystem
services and strengthening urban-rural linkages. City-regional food systems offer new
enterprise and marketing opportunities, while local production and consumption will also
result in expenditures being retained within a given locality. City-regional food systems are
on their turn an increasingly important driver for many other urban policies such as health and
nutrition, education, economic development, transport, environment, waste and water
management, disaster risk reduction, adaptation to climate change and social cohesion.

What can cities do? Examples of successful city food strategies

To develop resilient city-region food systems, a holistic approach which integrates all aspects
of the food system, is required. This includes urban and peri-urban agriculture, but also
strengthening the rural-urban interface to ensure connections between rural supplies and urban
contexts, and taking into account street food, retailers, food processing and distribution,
nutrition and health; as well as linkages to water, waste, transport and energy systems.

Cities present constraints, but also opportunities for building sustainable urban food systems.
They can preserve food diversity, stimulate food innovations (short supply chains, urban
agriculture, new forms of supply procurement, etc.) and have the potential to optimize
resource management, infrastructure and waste recycling.

Examples of successful city food strategies include:

• Preferential public food procurement for the public sectors (hospitals, schools, offices)
• Use of smart and local food labels
• Short chain marketing and value adding by farmers in the city region
• Productive and safe reuse of urban wastes and wastewater in urban and peri-urban
agriculture
• Supporting food projects by the urban poor/disadvantaged
• Inclusion of urban agriculture and forestry in land use planning, city climate change
adaptation and disaster risk reduction
• Supporting local small and medium enterprises in food processing and distribution
• Supporting farmer markets and local food hubs
• Promoting innovative forms of multi-functional agriculture
• Education and learning opportunities on “Good and Healthy Food” production and
consumption; nutrition education
• Reduction of food waste and linking to Food Banks
• Forming Food Policy Councils or Platforms

AMMAN, JORDAN
The Municipality of Jordan created in 2005 an urban agriculture bureau. In collaboration with
other stakeholders the city implements several projects such as production and distribution of
seedlings; the establishment of over 300 rooftop and more than 4000 school and home
gardens; and safe re-use of grey-water in agriculture. A land bank was developed in order to
better link land owners and (potential) producers. Land use guidelines were developed that
require 15% of each plot to be used for greening or agriculture. Training and technical
assistance on improved (ecological) farming and access to markets are provided to peri-urban
producers. A special logo was developed to promote local, fair and healthy production
characteristics of the products. By excluding intermediaries and valorizing distinctive product
qualities, better price margins were obtained.
What does make the Amman programme successful? Institutionalizing urban agriculture
and food strategies in municipal structures, programs, plans and budgets and facilitating
multi-stakeholder partnerships with a wide variety of organizations such as the Ministry of
Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment, the Royal Directorate for the Environment, the
University of Jordan, credit and financing organizations and civil society organizations to
help leverage needed resources (financial, knowledge etc.) and find synergies between
different actors.

BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL

The City of Belo Horizonte over the past 10 years has applied a multi-pronged approach to its
city-region food policy, by:
 Providing food and nutrition assistance to schools (200.000 school meals/day), 191 day
care centers, 19 elderly homes, homeless and food banks (distributing 1260 kg/food a day)
 Subsidized food marketing in 4 popular restaurants (serving 14.000 low-cost and healthy
meals/day)
 Supply and food market regulation in 21 service points offering 20 food items against a
set price; promoting farmer markets and organic food fairs
 Fostering urban agriculture; support to 126 school and 48 community gardens and
promoting fruit cultivation in open spaces
 Preferential procurement of peri-urban agriculture products
 Promoting healthy eating habits and lifestyles through communication and education;
training of food handlers
 Employment and income generation in bakery schools and pedagogical kitchens
 Establishment of a school food council; a municipal council for food and nutrition security
and a multi-stakeholder forum on urban and peri-urban agriculture.

What makes Belo Horizonte successful? There is strong political leadership and
commitment to include food security in the urban agenda in a holistic way. The city
developed platforms including all actors working on food system issues, and designed a
comprehensive city food and nutrition strategy. The city leverages federal and state resources
and food security and social welfare towards local policies and programs; and builds on and
links to other local initiatives and community-based programs..

KESBEWA URBAN COUNCIL AND WESTERN PROVINCE, SRI LANKA

Promote space-intensive home-gardens, productive rooftops, rainwater harvesting and

recycling of organic household waste and rehabilitation of paddy fields in flood zones and
wetlands. They also support enterprise development in form of nurseries and service outlets
for seeds and other accessories, as well as for commercialization. The city and province,
through its Ministry for Agriculture, provide- in collaboration with NGOs, international
support organisations like UN Habitat and RUAF Foundation, research institutes, training and
technical assistance to urban farmers. The city envisages agriculture, agro-parks and green
spaces to be integrated in a future green city mosaic. Since 2004, the Province supports urban
agriculture with views to decreasing reliance on food imports, enhancing job and income
creation and climate change, taking into its potential contribution to the reduction of food-
miles, to reducing flooding, to improved waste management, to improving the micro-climate
and reducing urban temperatures.

What makes these programmes successful?

Linking food to other policy goals, such as climate change and disaster risk reduction, waste
management and economic development, is important. Working across administrative
boundaries is also important with regards to optimizing transport infrastructure, land use
planning and making optimal use of available resources and knowledge at different levels.

Requirements for successful city food strategies

Examples from these and other cities show that requirements for successful food strategies
include:
• Showing how food can help meet different and multiple policy objectives
• Media attention and public dialogue on food issues and the multiple roles of agriculture in
urban
• local, regional and national food security, social welfare, economic or climate change
programs as well as from different stakeholders
• Designing a variety of (short-term) projects that have strong possibilities of success to
help build credibility, next to promoting institutional and policy uptake of food strategies
• Building on existing local initiatives: support for community-based and innovative private
sector food projects; replication and up-scaling of successful initiatives
• Combined with creation of a facilitating legal system
• Strong political leadership and longer term continuation of the process
• Involvement of various government departments & disciplines around food issues (e.g.
health; agriculture; economic development; marketing; climate change; transport; land use
planning; social welfare; education) with a strong coordinating department or champion
• Creating space for broad multi-stakeholder involvement (local government, private sector,
civil society, universities) in planning and implementation of food strategies and related
projects
• Joint food system assessment, visioning and design of a comprehensive food strategy or
action plan
• Leveraging of financial resources from framework and larger scale programmes at city
level
• Monitoring of clearly defined indicators for the desired changes in the functioning of the
urban food system.

TORONTO, CANADA
The city of Toronto is a municipal food policy leader, with a long history working to ensure
access to healthy, affordable, sustainable and culturally acceptable food. The Toronto Food
Policy Council (TFPC) was established in 1991 as a subcommittee of the Board of Health to
advise the City of Toronto on food policy issues. The TFPC connects diverse people from the
food, farming and community sector to develop innovative policies and projects that support a
health-focused food system, and provides a forum for dialogue and action amongst different
actors across the food system. The TFPC has contributed to a number of municipal policies,
including the City’s Official Plan, the Environmental Plan, the Food Strategy, the Golden
Horseshoe Food and Farm Action Plan, and the Urban Agriculture Action Plan. In 2010, the
Toronto Food Strategy was developed by the Toronto Public Health Department in
partnership with a number of other organizations and City Divisions. The Food Strategy team
has mapped healthy food access across the City, launched a Mobile Good Food Market,
started FOODWORKS, a Food Handler and Employability project, developed an urban
agriculture action plan; and is undertaking research related to healthy small food retail and
community food procurement.

Who were the various government actors involved in Toronto? Public Health,
Environment and Efficiency Office, Social Development; Economic Development and
Culture; Planning; Parks; Forestry and Recreation; Housing and Long-term care; Employment
and Social Services; Licensing and Standards.
What is still needed? Broader involvement of the private sector and food industries, better
documentation and evaluation in order to demonstrate successful processes for social change
as well as food system and other municipal/regional impacts and stronger linkages between
municipal food policy efforts and provincial and federal food, agriculture, public health, and
other policy domains.

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

Promotes productive rooftop gardening that provide an opportunity to grow food in inner-city
areas in response to decreased agricultural land and a growing reliance on vulnerable food
sources from other areas. The city, in collaboration with local NGOS, national research
institutes and international organizations (like UN Habitat and RUAF), involves its engineers
in the design of rooftop models suitable in the local context, trains masons on construction
and building, includes rooftop gardening in building codes, links gardeners to support input
supply and marketing enterprises, and promotes rainwater harvesting and composting of city
waste. Radio programs and information leaflets are developed to increase community and
policy interest and participation. Impact monitoring is planned for.

What were main reasons for the city to develop such program? Improved waste and water
management; food security and nutrition and climate change. Case studies show that intensive
rooftop production helps families to become self-sufficient in vegetables and herbs and
potentially sell some produce surplus. Rooftop gardens may also have positive impacts on
ambient and home temperatures, reducing heating and cooling requirements and thus reducing
emissions and save costs.

What is still needed? Real integration of urban agriculture and food in waste, water
management and national food security and building programs; larger-scale uptake of the
program and broadening the city’s vision to a real urban food system that considers
preservation of the peri-urban are; food transport and distribution and other elements.

Challenges and gaps for city food system development

“We urge that appropriate mechanisms be made available for capacity building and to
ensure direct access and scaled-up financial support for the implementation of urban
adaptation, including the development of resilient food systems”
Bonn Mayors Adaptation Charter, June 2013

Shifting scale
Despite growing attention among city governments and international organizations on the
importance of urban food and agriculture, there is a need to shift scale from from isolated and
temporal projects to larger scale programs and funding; from pilot and individual cities to
wider uptake at local and national level. Shifting scale is not happening due to a combination
of lack of larger-scale awareness and information (dissemination) on the need for and
potential contributions of urban food and agriculture to resilient city development, on current
and potential practices, policy and technological innovations; still limited visibility of the
topic among multilateral and bilateral donors as well as in international declarations, lack of
recent and standardised data on the impacts and associated benefits of urban agriculture and
food systems and lack of local and international financing.

Need for training and technical assistance

In order to facilitate local implementation and up-scaling, more training, technical assistance
and policy advice is needed on multi-stakeholder planning and design of city food systems
and strategies and on integration food and agriculture in to land use and city-development
planning. Cities also express demand for training and assistance on improved resource
recovery and re-use; on enhancing resilience of urban food systems to climate change and
development of urban and peri-urban agriculture models that have the greatest impact on
climate change mitigation and adaptation; on raising land/space rent of agricultural production
and on different organizational and governance mechanisms for the promotion of short food
chains and localized food hubs.

Lack of guidelines and toolkits

There is a need for practical guidelines on methods and tools for city-food system assessment,
planning, design and monitoring. Guidelines could also address other gaps and innovations
such as assessment of environmental benefits, services, risks and hazards of urban agriculture;
innovative mechanisms for financing of urban agriculture or compilations of successful local
and national food policies .Technical guidelines are also needed on how urban agriculture
systems can viably be embedded in buildings and other urban structures. Most rooftop
programmes for example still focus on green rooftops and few data; costs-benefit analysis,
technical guidelines and impact analysis are available for the promotion of productive rooftop
gardens in various climates and cities.

Linking and learning

An increasing number of cities, networks and organizations, in both the global North and
South are discussing, implementing or working on aspects of more resilient city-regional food
systems. By encouraging horizontal, city-to-city learning opportunities and exchanges, lesson
learned can be identified and localized and adapted to specific contexts. More support is
needed for medium-sized cities where urban growth pressures will be greatest and
institutional capacities may be weakest, for regional governments and in linking local and
regional governments to work at city-regional level.

“Cities must start to embrace the challenge of providing uninterrupted access to water, food,
and energy, and improve quality of life of all of their citizens, while minimizing resource
extraction, energy consumption, and waste generation, and safeguarding ecosystem services.
This will depend on how cities are planned and on how city-based energy, waste,
transportation, food, water, and sanitation systems are expanded and/or reconfigured. In this
regard, there is a clear role for urban food systems and agriculture as a key land use
feature for more resilient city-regions” –Raf Tuts, Chief of the Urban Environmental
Planning Branch, UN-Habitat, July 2013